Transfer ownership of Azure subscription from one organisation to another

Question

Hi there. We are keen to take over ownership of an Azure subscription and tenancy including all the existing resources, integrations, and configurations, etc. It would basically be a change in billing and management from one organisation to ours. There is a process to manage and execute this but will any of the existing configuration change or will it break the operation of all relevant resources, configurations, rules, integrations, etc? Has anyone done this before? Is there anything we need to worry about?

Answer 1

Hi ,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

Key Steps in Subscription Transfer

Check Eligibility:

• Not all Azure subscriptions are transferable. Check eligibility using Azure Subscription Transfer here or via Azure Support.
• Some Enterprise Agreements (EA) and Azure CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) subscriptions require special handling.

Initiate the Subscription Transfer:

• The current owner initiates the transfer request from the Azure portal under Billing > Subscriptions > Transfer Subscription.
• The new owner (your organization) must accept the transfer via email.

Change the Billing Ownership:

• Billing will be updated to your organization’s Azure tenant.
• You may need to reconfigure cost management and billing reports.

Migrate Resources to the New Tenant (If required):

• If the subscription is moving across Azure AD tenants, you may need to migrate resources using Azure Resource Mover or manual redeployment.

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Potential Impact & Considerations

Azure AD Changes:

• If moving to a new tenant, all role-based access control (RBAC) assignments, service principals, and managed identities may need to be reconfigured.
• If staying in the same tenant but just changing ownership, RBAC roles remain intact.

Licenses & Service Dependencies:

• Ensure any third-party marketplace services, reserved instances, or software licenses are compatible with the new tenant.

Networking & Security Configurations:

• VNETs, NSGs, firewalls, private links, ExpressRoute, VPNs -verify whether any of these are tenant-specific.
• Check Conditional Access policies that may be tied to the old tenant.

Azure DevOps & Automation Impact:

• Azure DevOps connections (Service Connections, Pipelines) may need to be updated.
• Automation Accounts, Runbooks, Logic Apps using old service principals could break.

Storage, Databases, and Key Vaults:

• Azure Key Vault secrets might need to be reconfigured.
• Managed databases (SQL, CosmosDB, etc.)—ensure firewall rules and security settings remain valid.

Azure Policies & Governance:

• Review Azure Policy assignments, Blueprints, and Management Groups in case they need to be reapplied.

Subscriptions with Reserved Instances or Hybrid Benefits:

• Reserved instances (VMs, databases) are not always transferable.
• Ensure Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) licenses remain valid post-transfer.

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